Wireless networks are telecommunications networks that use radio waves to carry information from one node in the network to one or more receiving nodes in the network. Wired communication can also be used in portions of a wireless network, such as in the core network. Cellular telephony is characterized by the use of radio cells that provide radio coverage for a geographic area, with multiple cells arranged to provide contiguous radio coverage over a larger area. Mobile devices use radio waves to communicate with the cellular radio cells, and the mobile devices can move from one cellular radio cell to another.
Mobile broadband networks are handling increasing amount of data traffic volume. This is in part because mobile devices are becoming more sophisticated and are able to engage in more data-intensive activities such as displaying movies or playing video games. The network segment between the radio base station and the network edge is often termed as the mobile backhaul. This segment is becoming a major bottleneck because of the lack of adequate bandwidth to support the deluge of data traffic in a cost effective manner. In many areas of the world, this segment is supported by microwave/UHF links and other point to point legacy links. Mass scale upgrade of these links to provide ample bandwidth for mobile broadband services is the most important task in hand for the operators. The capital expenses (CAPEX) and operational expenses (OPEX) for such upgrades of gigantic proportions are bound to slow down the availability of mobile broadband services to a large cross section of subscribers. So, operators are desperately looking for ways to offer mobile broadband services to their subscribers without having to incur an unreasonable amount of expenditure.
Overview
Certain embodiments disclose a method including receiving a packet at a gateway from a packet data network (PDN), inspecting the packet at an offload eligibility determination module by comparing rules based on policy at the gateway with information included in the packet, upon determining that the packet is offload eligible, modifying the packet at a processing module to prepare the packet for communication on an offload network, sending the modified packet onto the offload network for communication to a user equipment, and sending a non-offload eligible packet over a backhaul network to a radio access network.